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Raven and Skull

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Monday, 10 April 2017

I'm sharing the following short story for two reasons.

First, and most importantly, it's a thank you to everyone who bought a copy of Raven and Skull. I'm thrilled that so many of you enjoyed the book, delighted so many of you have taken time to share glowing reviews on Amazon, and this story is my way of saying thanks for taking the time to read and review.

Second: for those of you haven't yet read Raven and Skull, this story is here to give you a short idea of what my horror writing looks like. Caffeine Nights are offering a substantially discounted electronic download for a short period and I thought this short story might be a helpful way for potential buyers to decide if they want to read my work or not.

The Damned Box

By
Ashley Lister

“You’re late.”

Scott had known he would be late when he parked his Volvo
two hundred feet below. The knowledge had weighed as an additional nuisance on
his shoulders as he climbed over prophetic signs warning DANGER and KEEP OUT.
He had known he would be late during every arduous step to this meeting atop
the derelict bridge. Catching his breath; tightening his grip on the briefcase;
finding his feet on the rickety framework of the crossing’s decaying skeleton:
he thought of explaining it had taken two years to get to this rendezvous – and
an hour’s lateness was nothing in the scheme of such a grand time scale. But
those weren’t details the courier needed to know.

“I’m paying good money,” Scott grunted. “I’m entitled to
be late.”

The dusty ghosts of passing clouds veiled the sky’s
bloated moon. The shiver of a breeze rippled up from the black river far below.
Its unearthly sigh whispered through the rusting stanchions beneath their feet
and rattled loose chains above their heads.

Neither man moved.

“You have the
box?”

“You have the money?”

The courier lurked in shadows as though he were a part of
their impenetrable depths. He was a darkened figure on a black background: a
silhouette cloaked by the remnants of the bridge’s last crumbling wall. Scott
made out broad shoulders and the glint of slitted eyes. His imagination painted
the irises blood red. He could see a sliver of silver moonlight winking from
the sharp fangs of the box’s hasp. But he could see nothing more.

He clenched his jaw to stop his teeth from chattering.

“Is this going to be like a cold war
exchange?” Scott affected a bored tone. He reached into his coat and produced a
pack of cigarettes. Lighting one he hoped the smoke might steady his shaking
hand and quell the hammering of his heartbeat. “Did you intend for this to be
like something from the Berlin Wall, or the Soviet Border? I didn’t come out
here for role playing games.”

“Give me my money and you can have your
damned box.”

Moonlight flashed angrily on the hasp. It
was caused by a movement of the bridge. Or the courier had urged the box toward
Scott when he spoke. It couldn’t have been caused by anything else. Scott was
sure it couldn’t have been caused by anything else.

“Give me my money and this… this cursed
thing… it’s yours.” In a soft undertone, a whisper that was almost as
wordless as the wind, the courier added, “It’s a cancer. I’ll be happy to be
rid of it.”

An icy finger trailed down Scott’s spine. He turned the
collar of his jacket against the chill. He was close to getting the box. Two
years of planning and research had led to this moment. Whether he was shivering
from cold or terror or simple anticipation he knew the option of backing out
was no longer available. There was too much at stake. He drew on his cigarette
and tried to make sure there was no way the transaction could go wrong. His
mind raced to every eventuality that could cause a problem.

“You’re alone?”

An impatient sigh fluttered from the
shadows. “Yes.”

“Are you carrying?”

“I’m carrying this damned box.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“It’s cold,” the courier complained. “Just
give me my money and take this… this thing. I don’t have the strength or the
patience to argue. I don’t have an army of friends here in the shadows. I don’t
have a knife or a gun or any weapon. All I’ve got is this damned box.”

Another sigh.

This time the impatience was tangible.

Scott drew thoughtfully on his cigarette.

“Hurry up and let’s make the transaction,”
the courier snapped. “The worst I can threaten you with is negative feedback.”

Scott was surprised to hear himself laugh.
It had struck him as absurd when he found the box on eBay. He had first heard
about its legend through the age-brittle pages of a mummified ledger. Learning
of it from an incidental footnote in a history project; and then becoming
amazed that no one had ever publicised the box’s lethal legacy: he traced its
origins to the carpentry of Judas Iscariot. From there he meticulously
catalogued the graveyard relics of its dark and bloody history. The damned
box’s likeness was borne in a fresco at Pompeii. It was reputed to have been in
the possession of Attila the Hun, Vlad the Impaler and Ivan the Terrible. It
was stolen from the Marquis de Sade’s private collection at La Coste and
procured by the nefarious Robespierre. From revolutionary France it went on a
circuitous journey of Europe through the hands of Bonaparte, Haig, Lenin and
Hitler. Considering the lineage of its previous owners, Scott had thought the
box would most likely be found in either the Middle East or Washington DC. He had
contacted helpful allies in Northern Ireland, Iran, Iraq, Beirut the Lebanon
and Afghanistan as his search went worldwide. But he had never expected to find
it while trawling the Buy-It-Now ads on eBay.

“Here’s your money.”

Scott hefted his briefcase and took one
step toward the courier’s shadow. The glint on the box’s hasp flashed
momentarily brighter, then receded deep into the gloom. Scott dropped the
briefcase at the foot of the shadow before retreating a pace.

The chilly wind continued to tug at his
jeans and jacket.

The stanchions trembled. The bridge swayed
like a drunk leaning over the rail of a yawing boat. His bowels clenched as,
for the first time, Scott realised the precariousness of his situation. He was
two hundred feet above a midnight river; standing on the treacherous timbers of
a derelict bridge; in the company of a stranger; and only inches from the
cursed box.

His heart beat so swiftly he yearned to
vomit.

“Count it if you want,” Scott told the
courier. Unable to see the man, the money or the box, he spoke into shadows and
hoped his voice rang with authority. “But let’s get this done quick, shall we?
I’m not happy being up here. It’s cold and dangerous.”

“This location was your choice,” the
courier reminded him.

Scott could have argued the point. The
location had been selected after consultation with two shamans and a
collaboration of astrologers, mystics and fakirs. An iron bridge with wooden
slats, in the air above a river, was a touchstone to several of the basic
elements. The location avoided the magnetic lure of any ley-lines. It was a
place of mystic insignificance according to his advisors. One of the few places
where he might be protected from the box and its influence.

Without warning the briefcase was sucked
into the shadows. A single hand appeared and placed the box where the briefcase
had been. Scott was not surprised to see the hand was gloved. He wasn’t even
surprised to see the glove was latex – surgical – as though the courier knew he
was dealing with something vile, disgusting and potentially infectious.
Privately Scott didn’t think a pair of surgical gloves would offer the level of
protection that was needed against the evil of the damned box. But he kept that
thought contained behind the set of his clenched jaw.

In Scott’s opinion, the most remarkable
thing about the box was not the horror and calamity with which it was
associated. On an instinctive level he accepted the box was a catalyst for
disasters like Vesuvius, the 1931 Yellow River flood and the devastation of
Navado Del Ruiz. And he was happy to concede that its malevolent presence had
invoked atrocities like Robespierre’s reign of terror, Haig’s genocidal horrors
of the Great War, or Hitler’s holocaust. But it was how the box travelled from
owner to owner that he found most frightening.

Another shiver rippled down his spine.

Goosebumps covered his arms.

His hands shook as though he was the
victim of a minor palsy.

Through his research, Scott had uncovered
several diaries and ledgers that all told similar, disquieting stories. The box
was invariably acquired as a bequest. The silver inlay on its woodwork was
sufficiently ornate to be admired. The decoration ensured the box was coveted,
kept and treasured. Usually, the damned box was deemed attractive enough to be
prominently displayed by its unfortunate new owner. And, from its position of
importance within each unsuspecting household, the damned box was able to
oversee all manner of sinister and macabre happenings.

Scott had read of two dozen hauntings –
ghastly affairs peopled by the grisliest menaces. He had read of mayhem,
misery, malevolence and murder. And all of the stories ended badly. They were
tales of terror-induced heart attacks and soul-slitting shifts away from
sanity. Some of the diaries simply ended with a final, innocuous entry. Those
tomes were frustrating for Scott, even though the incomplete documents shrieked
volumes from their blank pages of silence. He had read of ghosts, ghouls,
daemons and devils. Succubae, serpents and Satan.

Those who didn’t know guessed at the
unknown.

Those who did know were driven insane by
the knowledge.

And then the damned box moved on.

Always one step closer to its next goal.
Always causing death and destruction. Always moving into the hands of a
diabolical champion: someone able to blight the world with new levels of sadism
and suffering and torture and torment. In Europe it had been owned by Spain’s
Torquemada, Belgium’s King Leopold and Prussia’s Kaiser Wilhelm. In America it
had been in Grant’s hands at Gettysburg. It had been in the laboratories of the
Manhattan Project.

And now Scott saw it was by the side of
his boot.

For an instant he couldn’t move. The box
had not just existed for centuries: it had survived two millennia. Admittedly its
legacy had been nothing but death and destruction but the fact that it had
survived so much history set him momentarily in awe.

Small.

A square brick of polished wood decorated with silver. The
same silver Judas collected? Wood from Christ’s cross? Stained with His blood? The
inlay described disconcerting shapes: a filigree of artistically devilish
symbols. He had never suspected it would be so hypnotically attractive. His eye
chased the detail through curls and curves into a baphomet and then an udjat.
There was a variation on something that looked like Aleister Crowley’s
unincursive hexagram. That shape was followed by a trident and a voodoo veve.

Mesmerised, Scott could only stare.

The box had been given to Nathaniel
Bedford Forrest when he became a Grand Wizard at Nashville, Tennessee. It had
held cigars on Pol Pot’s desk. It had stored letters in Harold Shipman’s Hyde
surgery. Scott wondered if it had once been in Pandora’s possession.

And then the hasp drew his eye.

The interlocking teeth of the clasp
glistened like a snake’s venomous bite. He didn’t know if it was the sway of
the bridge, a trick of the light, or a fault with his vision. But Scott could
have sworn the hasp was opening and bearing longer fangs.

He acted on instinct.

Raising one foot he brought his boot down
and stamped heavily against the lid of the box. His heel struck with full
impact. The bridge beneath him shook with the vigour of the blow. The box
remained undamaged by his assault. Unperturbed, Scott lifted his foot and stamped
heavily down for a second time.

This time the wood groaned.

The sound was only just audible above the
shriek of the bridge’s protesting metalwork. But Scott continued, elated that
he might have caused the box some pain.

He stamped again.

Heavier.

Harder.

“What the hell are you doing?”

The courier’s outraged voice spat from the
shadows.

Scott ignored him and continued to lift
his foot and drive his boot against the box. Moonlight on the hasp made the
silver teeth flash with renewed viciousness. He could see the lid beginning to
weaken from the repeated force. A rictus-like grin spread across his lips. His
eyes shone with wicked malice as he drove his foot down again and again and
again.

“What are you doing?” The courier’s
latex-sheathed hand stretched out from the shadows. Clutched Scott’s shoulder.
Gripped him tight. “What’s wrong with you?”

“This doesn’t concern you,” Scott grunted.
He tried to shrug the hand away. He continued to drive his heel against the
buckling lid of the box. Each blow shook the stanchions of the bridge. Each
kick sullied the silver inlay. Broke the filigree between a curl and an udjat.
Weakened the threat of every veve. Made the wood buckle inward.

“I’ve bought the damned box…” Scott
panted.

Stamp.

His heartbeat pounded.

“…I’ve paid for the damned box...”

Stamp.

His jaw was clenched so tight he could
taste splintering enamel.

“…you’ve got your money…”

Stamp.

“…and I can do with it…” stamp “…whatever
the hell…” stamp “…I want.”

“You’re going to bring the bridge down.”
The courier’s hand squeezed Scott’s bicep. The fingers were as tight as the
panic in his voice. His breath came out of the shadows: sulphurous and vile.
“You’re going to send this bridge crashing into the river. This bridge and us
with it.”

Scott raised his gaze and caught sight of
demonic red eyes within the shadows. Steeling himself to deliver a final blow
he raised his knee and then ploughed his foot into the box. It shattered with
the sickening and brittle crunch of a brick on a kitten’s skull.

The hand on his bicep gripped more
fiercely.

For the first time since he had begun to
destroy the box Scott realised the bridge was swaying ominously.

Dangerously.

“Have you finished?” the courier shrieked.
He raised his voice to be heard over the tortured scream of protesting
stanchions. “Have you finished?”

Scott glanced at the remnants of broken
box beneath his boot. He allowed himself to relax. Resisting the urge to use
further brutal force, he gently kicked the shards and splinters over the sides
of the teetering bridge. They disappeared in the darkness as they cascaded
toward the water far below. It was only when he had punted the last pieces into
the black river that he let himself relax.

“Now I’m finished,” he told the courier.

The hand slid away from his arm.

The courier said nothing as he retreated
back into his shadows. He remained silent as he slunk away to the opposite side
of the bridge. Scott watched, relieved to see the silhouette go. He was
bewildered that he had managed to complete his personal mission. The realisation
that it had been so simple to destroy two thousand years of history left him
doubting the accomplishment and he wondered if the whole incident had been
nothing more than a figment of his imagination.

An extremely expensive figment of his
imagination.

Climbing away from the bridge, climbing
down the steep embankment and taking care not to stumble, he sighed with relief
when he realised the ordeal of the last two years was now behind him. He had
recognised the evil. He had tracked it to its source. And he had thwarted its
diabolical plan. The enormity of his success was so great he couldn’t properly
grasp the ramifications of all that he had achieved.

Settling behind the wheel of his Volvo,
closing the door on the adventure he had just concluded, Scott saw the
undamaged damned box sitting on the dashboard.

THE
END

Final word: I hope you enjoyed the story. If you did, and you've not yet read Raven and Skull, use the above links to purchase your copy. And, as a last favour, if you did enjoy the story, please take a moment to share this page with your friends on FaceBook and Twitter.